Center for Studies and Community Empowerment AWT

Field Courses in the Osa Peninsula? r Visit CEEC AWT, bring you pus students, use our cam and research facilities!

Dorm Style Rooms Meeting room Dining area Heliconia Trail Organic area Wireless Internet

Center for Studies

OUR MISSION

Fundación Neotrópica has the mission to promote social consensus and self management for the conservation and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits generated by our natural resources.

and Community Empowerment

Álvaro Wille Trejos

For more information contact us: Our CEEC-AWT is located near Corcovado National Park, Caño Island Coral Reefs and Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve

StudyAbroad@neotropica.org Phone: (506) 2253-2130 Fax: (506) 2253-4210

Visit our website if you want to know more about our work! www.neotropica.org The proceeds of these recreational/educational activities are funneled directly to small rural community tourism operations and sustainable tourism ventures that have been thoroughly evaluated by Fundación Neotrópica’s team (with 25 years of experience in environmental work). The percentage going to Fundación Neotrópica supports the work of its Centers for Studies and Community Empowerment to improve the community conservation options and the social wellbeing of the region you are visiting.

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CEEC-AWT

Osa Peninsula Costa Rica

CEEC-AWT Center for Studies and

Community Empowerment Álvaro Wille Trejos, CEEC-AWT The CEEC-AWT is located within the Forest Reserve of Golfo Dulce, and near Corcovado National Park, and just a few minutes from the waters of the Golfo Dulce.

CEEC-AWT

Corcovado National Park

Pacific Ocean

Located in the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, in the community of "Agua Buena de Rincon" in the canton of Osa, province of Puntarenas.

The CEEC - AWT station was founded en 1993 under the name “Centro Juvenil Tropical” (Tropical Youth Center).

It was founded in order to implement a process of environmental education to help preserve and diffuse the importance of the biodiversity that resides in the Osa Peninsula, this being one of the places with the highest density and variety of species in the world.

Today, with the objective to reinforce and renew the mission of the foundation, the CEEC - AWT station is in a process in which the goal is to become a center of education and training related to the communities in the Osa Peninsula. This conducted in such manner that a joint effort between the foundation and the local population is established, and that the residents will be in charge of their own development.

Also, the CEEC - AWT strives to spread the biological importance of the Osa Peninsula through visits to its facilities for students and researchers from abroad, thus promoting a healthy integration between local culture and that of the visitors, hence facilitating an ambience of tolerance and mutual learning which fortifies the capacity of each individual.

Inter-institutional Agreements Fundacion Neotropica is working with national universities (UCR, UNA and ITCR) developing possibilities for studies and research about the Osa Peninsula region. For these purposes, Neotropica has signed agreements to establish different projects: •

UCR:

Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory of the Golfo Dulce and Osa Peninsula • UNA-OVSICORI: Digital Seismic Station for the Osa Peninsula • ITCR: Water Lab Project

Álvaro Wille Trejos

17 de mayo, 1928 - 11 de junio, 2006

Facilities

• Cabins with the capacity to host 32 people • Dorm type building with capacity for up to 24 people • Administration building with library and training room • Classroom and meeting room • Wireless Internet • Dining area and meal services • Heliconia Trail • 12 hectares of protected forest • Organic Area • Area for installation of portable laboratories

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The famous entomologist Álvaro Wille Trejos was born of Costa Rican mother, and father of German origin, on May 17, 1928.

He spent his early years in a rural environment, surrounded by his family’s coffee plantation and large patches of tropical forest.

His relationship with the University of Kansas began when an expedition team from that institution arrived to the nearby port of Limón. They needed one guide to collect tropical rain forest specimens and somehow young Álvaro got that position. There he began a relationship with E. Raymond Hall, who saw the scientific potential of that brilliant boy. Dr Wille got his PhD form University of Kansas in 1959.

Since 1954, he dedicated part of his research to the study of insects in Mexico and Costa Rica under the supervision of the Department of Zoology and Entomology of University of Kansas. By 1959 he started as a research faculty at University of Costa Rica, School of Agronomy, and became the Department Chief between 1961 and 1985. Dr Wille also founded the Insects Museum at University of Costa Rica. Among his most famous research, he studied the nervous systems in bees; taxonomy of insects; by 1973, he developed his research on “The Nest Architecture of Stingless Bees with Special Reference to those of Costa Rica”. In 1975 he studied the effect of Irazu volcanic ashes on some insects. His master piece came out in 1983 “Corcovado: Meditaciones de un Biólogo”(Corcovado: Meditations from a Biologists), been awarded with Costa Rica National Prize Aquileo Echeverría in 1983.

In recognition for his great work, particularly in the Osa Peninsula region, Fundación Neotrópica renamed its Field Station as “Center for Studies and Community Empowerment Alvaro Wille Trejos” on April 2009.